Bugger: A Brief Introduction to Climate Contradictions
Guest post by Left Outside
At some point in the late 1950s someone coined the term “Global Warming” when referring to Climate Change, and it has gained tractions since. Global Warming is catchy and easy to visualise, but it is infuriatingly easy for morons – and it is apt to call them morons – to use any cold snap to pooh pooh the scientific consensus on global warming climate change.
I’ve already pointed out the nonsense of Douglas Carswell. Kindly, AngryMob directs me to the ignorant effluence spouting from Richard Littlejohn:
Ah, say the ‘experts’, there’s a difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’. They are forced to resort to semantics to sustain their insistence that the science is settled, even though they are all sitting there shivering like brass monkeys. They’d still cling to their belief in man-made warming if Hell froze over.
The idea that the difference between climate and weather is semantic would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing (Incidentally, if you want a “how to model climate in three easy steps” then please do look at Unity’s post here).
In response AngryMob treats us to the usual combination of ennui and anger that fills all those that have Littlejohn’s column for as long as he has:
So there you have it: the only difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ according to Littlejohn is semantic. I wish everything in life was as simple as Littlejohn makes out, but sadly things are a little more complex than that and the cold weather outside today says nothing about climate change or the climate in general.
However, rather than take issue with Littlejohn I thought I would try something a little more intellectually stimulating and draw attention to something else.
When AngryMob says “the cold weather outside today says nothing about climate change or the climate in general” he is wrong. Now I know this is out of shear frustration with Littlejohn, rather than his considered opinon, but it gives me a little chance to discuss the weather.
And as an Englishman, who wouldn’t leap at that chance?
The below graphic and paragraph are taken from Fish Out of Water on The Daily Kos (H/T Brad DeLong):
Daily Kos: Freak Current Takes Gulf Stream to Greenland: An unprecedented extreme in the northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation has driven a strong direct connecting current between the Gulf Stream and the West Greenland current. The unprecedented negativity of the “Arctic Oscillation” and the strong connection of the Gulf Stream with the Greenland current are exceptional events. More exceptional weather events are predicted with anthropogenic climate change, but this could be a natural variation of weather and currents.
Now all of that doesn’t really make much sense to anyone. The above graphic especially won’t make much sense unless you know how the Gulf Stream is meant to act. For that reason I have included the below graphic.
As you can see, something has gone quite drastically wrong with the North Atlantic.
In recent weeks the low pressure area which normally sits over Iceland has been replaced with a high pressure area. [1]
This means that the warm air we normally get from the Atlantic can’t get here to warm us, and has instead been replaced with altogether more cold air from the Arctic. This causes us to be bitterly cold; -22.3C cold.
But what is interesting is that this atmospheric disturbance has been sat there long enough to begin to shift the Gulf Stream.
This is a big deal as a lot of the reason that London (latitude 51°32′ N) has such a different climate to Moscow (latitude 55°45′ N), is that the Gulf Stream brings us so much warmth.
We really don’t want to fuck with it. The terror on our roads has illustrated exactly how well we cope with weather which is actually adverse rather than just inconvenient.
The high pressure area sitting over Iceland has caused both the change in the Gulf Stream and the change in our normally mild winters. This sort of exceptional weather event is predicted to happen ever more frequently as our climate changes.
So climate change and a general increase in global temperature, leading to a more chaotic weather system, will probably lead to these cold winters happening more and more often. So there you have it, the whole world gets warmer and Britain is destined for cold, frost and rain.
Is it just me or does this seem bloody typical?
[1] The high blood pressure caused by Iceland seems to be entirely coincidental.
Reader Comments
Thanks for this – very informative. The denialists are remarkably stubborn, so of course nothing will get through to them. For the rest of us, it’s useful to understand this sort of thing.
A much clearer and more coherent article on climate change than most, well done to you sir!
I would take a little issue with the assertion at the end that anthropogenic climate change will cause Britain to have colder winters. One of the subtleties of global warming (that often gets lost in the shrillness the debate always seems to descend to), is that it’s very easy to say that a massive input of carbon to the ocean-atmosphere system in a short time could affect significant changes to the climate, but very difficult to make any prediction as to what that difference would be. This is due to the climate being part of a chaotic system (not a random system, that’s something altogether different), with lots of positive and negative feedbacks that work in different ways, on different timescales.
Of course, this is in no way what the public want to hear, which is that something we can clearly determine is definitely going to happen unless we take clearly defined measures for a clearly defined time. and there is no way to offer that level of certainty.
I like this post. Presumably it’s escaped the attention of Littlejohn that the daytime temperature in Crete is around 30 degrees Celsius. He also doesn’t know the difference between the meanings of “global” and “local”. Or maybe he thinks this is just semantics as well.
A better illustration of the difference between having the Gulf Stream flow over Northern Europe and not might be to compare London (latitude 51°32′ N) with Waskaganish, formerly known as Fort Rupert, in Quebec (latitude 51°30′ N). Wikipedia informs me that it’s a Cree village of about 2000 people on the south-east shore of James Bay, itself an inlet of Hudson Bay. London would be just as obscure without the Gulf Stream – no disrespect intended to the inhabitants of Waskaganish, but they have to admit that few have heard of them. I doubt that Littlejohn has.